Public admin scy himself complains of ‘ghost electricity bill’

Public administration secretary Md Mozammel Haque Khan on Sunday said that he himself was a victim of overbilling for power consumption at his government house in Dhaka.
At a programme marking Public Service Day- 2017, hosted by Power Division, he cited two examples of charging abnormally high at two different government houses in Dhaka while explaining the ground reality of the power utility services.
Mozammel said that the utilities concerned did not address his problem even after he had repeatedly filed complaints.
Different surveys also showed that the power utilities charge exorbitantly high from consumers to make up the losses they incur due to theft by high-end domestic, commercial and industrial consumers.
At the programme, prime minister’s energy adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury and Power Division secretary Ahmad Kaikaus admitted that there were problems in electric billing across the country.
Tawfiq regretted that the power utility had failed to address the problem of a customer who was a senior secretary.
At a residence, Mozammel was charged Tk 6,500 to Tk 7,000 per month which was abnormally high and when he moved to a rented house with the same electric appliances, he was charged only Tk 2,500 to Tk 3,000 per month. 
Then again, he said, ‘I shifted to another government house and the utility started charging about Tk 8,000 per month. I have filed complaints with the utility’s local office and they replied they would look into the matter.’
‘The next month, they sent a bill of Tk 13,000 and the issue is still pending,’ he added.
The speakers asked the utilities to behave professionally to the consumers until smart metering system was installed across the country.
The government took aggressive programme to replace more than 20 million traditional electric meters with smart or prepaid meters.
The utilities have so far installed a few hundred thousand prepaid electric meters at different pockets of their distribution areas on a pilot basis.
At the programme, a journalist alleged that the users of prepaid electric meters did not have scope of recharging cards on Friday and Saturday as vending stations for recharging the prepaid cards remained closed on the two days every week.
The Power Division secretary instantly announced that the vending stations would remain operational seven days a week. 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net